Moving on, she saw the beige-colored envelope addressed to Jason from her, opened and lying on the mantle. That answered one of her questions. He had received the letter and read it. Her hands went next to a book lying face down on a chair. The leather binding felt worn, as if it had been read many times. She turned it over and saw that it was a collection of Shakespeare’s plays. Funny … she had the same volume at her apartment.
Progressing on, she discovered an expensive and complicated set of stereo components. He liked music, but that she had known. Any man who could dance as well as he, had to have a natural feeling for music of all kinds.
She couldn’t stand it anymore. There was too much silence in the room. She had to speak to him. “Do you know what I was thinking while I was taking my shower?” —Morgan didn’t expect or wait for an answer—” I was thinking of the rain forest where we made love, that last day we were on the island. Do you remember? The glade where we made love was cool, but we created our own heat.” She hesitated and peered at him from under her lashes, trying to gauge his reaction to her attempt at ensnaring him in their memories.
“Didn’t we make a corner of heaven for ourselves there? I’ve never experienced anything like it before … have you?”
His eyes were silently monitoring her random progress about the room, alertly observant to her every gesture. She stopped at his chess set and picked up the king, idly rubbing the brass finish. She knew she felt warmly damp and smelled freshly of his personal soap. She could feel his rising need of her clear across the room. So why wasn’t he saying anything? Couldn’t he tell how much she loved him?
She put the chess piece down and picked up the queen, studying it thoughtfully. “You have to realize that for years I thought I was frigid. Yet even before you first kissed me, I felt, in a strange, almost mystical sense, that my life was about to begin—in you.” Morgan turned to look fully at Jason. “And there has never been anything so right in this world as the moment when we finally made love. I could easily have died of the pleasure you gave me—you, Jason, only you can make me feel that way.”
Morgan began to walk toward him, trailing her fingers over the satiny wood of a table she passed.
Jason came to his feet with an apparent unwillingness, almost in a trancelike state, as if his actions were quite beyond his control.
She stopped before him. There was so much inside her that she wanted to say, but she didn’t know how or which words to utter next. It seemed such a crucial moment! Tears filled her eyes. Oh God, she thought, in selfderision, here she was in Jason’s apartment, half naked, with his full attention, and she was about to make a complete fool of herself by crying.
She reached for a napkin that lay on the bar to wipe the tears away, but the motion caused the towel to slip from around her body and down to the floor. Morgan froze for a split second in time, seeing now the blaze of desire that lit the darkness of Jason’s eyes. But it was the only thing that touched Morgan, because Jason didn’t move. They were both being held captive in the grip of the hotly powerful emotions running between them.
Jason’s eyes never lowered from hers. Nevertheless, the tears finally spilled over, making poignant paths of wetness down her cheeks. There was only one thing she could say, and she said it. “I love you, Jason.”
With a deep groan, Jason reached for her, pulling her into him. Their lips met in an eternity of a kiss, and they hung tightly on to one another with a fierceness of need that spoke more clearly of the truth of Morgan’s statements than anything she could have said. It went on and on until, at last, he pushed her away so that his shaky fingers could get to his shirt buttons.
Morgan’s hands encircled the back of his head, and her mouth came down on his throat, moving inside the shirt collar to the base and licking at the spot directly over his pounding pulse. She could feel the back of his hands graze against the bareness of her breasts as he worked on the buttons of his shirt, and a fresh joy of the promise of his love sprang up in her.
“It seems like forever since we were together in Martinique,” she murmured into his skin, her lips moving across his throat and up behind his ear, where her teeth took hold of his earlobe, chewing gently.
At the same time, her hands began massaging his neck, easing the tenseness of his strongly corded muscles. Jason thrust his shirt off impatiently and brought her back to him, his hands caressing the tips of her breasts that were exquisitely pointed with desire.
“Touch me, Morgan,” Jason demanded raggedly. He sat back down, pulling her between his legs, and his hands went compulsively under her buttocks, pulling her more forcefully up into the incredible virile strength of him, where his hips began nudging against her in a wanton demonstration of his passion.
She met his movements. Raising on tiptoe she pushed down against him, beginning an up and down motion, with the strength of his arms supporting her. “I feel empty without you, Jason. It’s an ache deep inside of me that I can’t get rid of without your help. Only you can fill me.”
Jason’s tongue curled inside her slightly parted mouth, tracing a path across the ridges of her teeth and up under the velvet edge of her lips.
“I need you so, Jason,” she breathed, her breasts rubbing incessantly on his chest, her lips moving over his mouth. “We need each other, and you can’t say it isn’t true.”
Morgan drew back, looking deeply into Jason’s eyes and the fire she saw there seared through her, heating her blood to an almost unbearable degree. “Can you?”
“No.” The answer seemed to be torn painfully from him. “No, damn you, I can’t.”
His mouth attacked hers, grinding her lips against her teeth until she tasted her own blood. Or maybe it was his. Morgan didn’t know or care. Jason loved her, he wanted her—she was sure of it.
His tongue was inside her mouth, pillaging the moist interior, yet it still wasn’t enough. Jason pulled her down to the floor with him. The carpet felt soft under her nakedness, and Jason felt hard as he ground his hips against her.
“God, Morgan! I want you so badly.”
His mouth fastened on her nipple with near violent hunger and she curved her back, thrusting her breast deeper into his mouth. “Now, please now. Don’t make me wait. I can’t.” It must have been her final plea, but to her astonishment, he rolled abruptly away from her. “Jason?” she cried, feeling like a part of her had just left.
“Damn you to hell, Morgan! Why did I let that happen?” His chest was rising and falling with the great heaves of his effort to get himself under control. He threw one arm across his eyes.
Morgan raised and reached out to stroke a hand over his chest. “Because you can’t forget how it was between us any more than I can.”
“I’ll tell you what else I can’t forget,” he gritted, throwing her arm away. “I can’t forget how my brother is suffering because of the two-timing little bitch you are.”
“Jason, I tried to explain—”
In one quick motion Jason was on his feet. Scooping up her forgotten towel, he hurled it at her. “You can’t talk fast enough, Morgan, to make me forget the disgust I feel for you. Now, get up. I’ll bring your clothes to the bedroom, and I’ll call you a cab, but I want you dressed and out of here in five minutes.”
Morgan walked slowly back to the bedroom in a daze of incomprehension, an awful pain of pure misery eating her insides away. She knew that Jason had been as aroused and had wanted to make love as much as she.
In her state of hurt confusion, Morgan also knew one other thing—she wasn’t going to give up. That man loved her, and she was going to make him admit it or die trying.
Jason reached the bedroom before her with his hands full of her clothes. Tossing them contemptuously on the bed, he turned and stamped out, barking a reminder over his shoulders, “Five minutes, Morgan.”
Dressed with two minutes to spare, she stood in the middle of the room, her gaze sweeping longingly around it, seeking the solace that Jason’s personal belongings seemed to bring her
. The jacket Jason had been wearing was lying across the back of a chair. Morgan picked it up and held it close. She had never in her entire life felt more vulnerable. His rejection had hurt terribly, all the more so because she couldn’t understand it.
She hugged the coat close to her body, trying to draw some comfort from the warmth of it, but a hard mass dug into her. Opening the jacket, she found an appointment book. Morgan looked at it with misgivings. After all, invading someone’s privacy was naturally abhorrent to her, but perhaps if she scanned through it, she would be able to discover something, some clue that might help her.
And she did, finding what she read there to be very interesting. Two nights from now, if the book was correct, Jason was supposed to have dinner with someone named Melinda at Paddy’s and Company.
The rat! That was the restaurant where the two of them had been going to meet the night after they had gotten back from Martinique. And here he was, just a few days later, meeting another woman. The man obviously had no scruples. A mischievous smile spilt Morgan’s tear-stained face. Well, then, neither did she.
Carefully replacing the appointment book, she looked around the room once more and then quietly left the apartment.
#
“So then you’ll do it?” Morgan asked eagerly.
“Of course he’ll do it,” Sami affirmed spiritedly.
The person on whom the speculation rested viewed the two young women resignedly. “Just what exactly does it entail?”
“Honestly, Jerome!” Sami protested. “That’s the lawyer coming out in you. Always wanting to know the fine print.”
“Oh yeah? Well, it’ll be a certified miracle if I ever make it into law school the way I keep having to interrupt my education to help you two out of the messes you somehow manage to get yourself into.” He threw his hands up in the air. “I really don’t understand how you got along without me all those years.”
“Interrupt your education! That’s a big laugh when you consider how, at first, I had to practically drag you down to the university and sign you up myself.”
Jerome shrugged impassively. “Once I found out the university was coeducational, I decided it was worth getting involved. Actually, I rather like it now. My favorite time is between classes, when I get to walk from building to building.”
Morgan’s mouth quirked into a wry grin, as she listened to Sami and Jerome’s teasing banter. The truth was that Jerome was a serious student with one of the highest averages in his class. At the moment, there were quite a few law schools jumping at the chance to get him. And as far as Sami’s involvement went, everyone present, including Jerome, knew that his dream of an education couldn’t have become a reality without Sami’s help, both financially and emotionally.
The three friends were lounging in Sami’s staggeringly huge, one-room apartment before a free standing fireplace that served both as a place of warmth and as a divider between her living room and bedroom.
“Will you both just hush up?” Morgan asked, focusing her attention on Jerome. “As to what the evening will entail, don’t worry about a thing. Just leave it all up to me.”
“When you say ‘don’t worry about a thing,’ ” he drawled, “that’s the time I start worrying.”
“You know,” Sami said, pursing her lips and again going off on another tangent, “I would never have thought that Jason would be the type of man to go out with another woman.”
“You only met him one time, Sami,” Jerome reminded her dryly.
“But you know what a good judge of character I am. No.” She tossed her head, causing her blond hair to ripple down her back in honey-colored waves. “There’s got to be more to this than meets the eye. Any man who refuses to see Morgan again has got to be either crazy or … I’ve got it! This Melinda must be a high-priced call girl.”
“Sami!”
“Well, honestly, Jerome. Can you think of any other reason why Jason would go out with another woman so soon after he’s had an affair with Morgan?”
A lopsided grin tugged at Jerome’s mouth. “Your logic escapes me, but I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“That’s okay. I’ll be glad to explain it.” The slightly raised gesture of her hand toward him spoke of grand condescension. “Jason obviously found Morgan so good in bed that—”
“Sami!” This time the protest came from Morgan, but heedless of her friend’s embarrassment, Sami forged sublimely on.
“—that he needs a woman, and instead of wanting to get emotionally involved so soon after the experience of their totally perfect love, he decided to just pay for it.”
Morgan looked at Jerome and shook her head wryly. “I wonder why I don’t feel comforted by that thought?”
“If it’s not that,” Sami persisted, “then she must be the classic ‘other woman’—the type that can smell his wounds and has decided to move in for the kill. In other words, a real hard-shelled bitch.”
Morgan cleared her throat loudly. “Can we please get back to the subject at hand?”
Sami looked at her in astonishment. “Which is?”
“Which is, Jerome accompanying me to Paddy’s and Company tomorrow night.”
“But I thought that was all settled.”
“Not exactly,” Jerome broke in. “I’ll do it, of course, but I’d just like a few more details—such as, am I going to have to kill, maim or maybe seduce anybody? You know, just general stuff like that.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. All you have to do is watch me and follow my lead.”
“You don’t have a plan yet, do you?”
“Not really.”
Chapter Six
Paddy’s and Company was a popular gathering place for the young “movers and shakers” of the city and on this particular night, the bar was packed to capacity. Since it was always crowded, Morgan knew that one needed to have reservations well in advance in order to get seated for dinner at a reasonable hour, and it was for that very reason that she hadn’t bothered making any.
“Are you sure he’s coming?” Jerome asked, not for the first time.
“That’s what his appointment book said, unless ‘Melinda’ changed his mind for him.”
“Yeah? They could have decided to skip dinner and get right to the main course.”
“That’s not funny!”
“Oh. come on. You know I’m just kidding. How about another drink?”
“No thanks. That’s how I got into this mess in the first place—downing a double Scotch at the airport.”
“If you say so, but I’d be willing to wager my tuition for next semester that you’re not sorry.”
“You’d win.” Morgan smiled reluctantly and looked at her watch for the umpteenth time. From their carefully selected position in the bar, Morgan knew that they would be able to see anyone who entered or left the restaurant.
Just then, the hostess passed in front of the opening to the bar, leading a well-dressed brunette and … Jason toward the back of the restaurant, where rows of intimate booths were lined around the dance floor. Each booth had heavy red velvet curtains that the diners could either let down for complete privacy or leave tied back for a view of the dance floor.
“There they are. I hope they leave the curtains tied back so that I can tell which booth they’re in.”
“Don’t worry. We can always bribe a waiter.” Jerome studied Morgan meditatively. “How long are you going to give them?”
“I don’t know.” Morgan stared anxiously at the now empty doorway. “Let’s give them a few minutes to get settled.”
But the longer Morgan waited, the more nervous she became. And worse luck, the girl that Jason was with didn’t look anything like a prostitute—or a hard-shelled bitch either! Morgan honestly didn’t have any clear idea what she was going to do. She only knew that she would do just about anything to break up Jason’s evening with the gorgeous brunette he was with.
“Okay.” Morgan suddenly slammed her hand down on the table. “That’s long enough. Let’s go.”
Holding tightly onto Jerome’s hand, she led the way toward the back room, then stopped at the doorway to survey the scene. At first she didn’t see them and panicked in case they were behind one of the many closed curtains.
“Over there,” Jerome whispered in her ear. “The second booth from the right.”
“I’ll kill him,” Morgan muttered, as she finally saw Jason and his date. They were sitting across from one another, the booth curtains opened, and Jason had one of the girl’s hands in his, talking earnestly to her.
Quickly crossing the room, Morgan slid into the booth on Jason’s side, before he had a chance to realize what was happening. “Jason! Good heavens. Imagine seeing you here!”
Jerome had followed a little more slowly and slid in beside the girl. Morgan forced her voice to a sparkling brightness. “You don’t mind if we join you, do you? We were just about to be seated for dinner when we noticed you. I told Jerome, ‘Jerome,’ I said, ‘there’s Jason. Wouldn’t it be fun to join him for dinner.’” Morgan petitioned Jerome, “Didn’t I say that, Jerome?”
“That’s what you said, all right.”
Morgan looked at Melinda. “This is Jerome Mailer— Jason already knows him—and I’m Morgan Saunders.” Morgan extended her hand toward the self-possessed young woman, so that she had to take her hand away from Jason’s. “Of course, Jason knows me, too, but then I’m sure he’s told you all about how we met on the plane to Martinique.”
“How do you do,” the woman responded politely, but her beautiful brown eyes were definitely not friendly. “I’m Melinda Johnson.”
“Melinda! What a sweet name,” Morgan gushed. “It sort of conjures up images of ruffles and bows, doesn’t it?” Even as Morgan said the words, she cringed. She knew they sounded catty, yet she couldn’t seem to help herself. This woman was absolutely gorgeous, and she was on a date with Jason. In Morgan’s book, the latter was enough to make Melinda an automatic rival.
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